Air Canada has teamed with blockchain travel platform Winding Tree to explore how blockchain technology will impact travel agents.

Established in 1937, Air Canada is the country’s largest domestic and international airline serving more than 220 airports on six continents. It provides scheduled passenger service directly to 64 airports in Canada, 59 in the United States and 98 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and South America. In 2017, it carried 48.1 million passengers, with an increase by 7.3 percent compared with 2016.

Winding Tree is a blockchain-based decentralized open-source travel distribution platform. The platform enables startups and companies to gain direct access to travel service providers’ offerings without the need for intermediaries. It connects buyers and sellers via a set of smart contracts and open-source tools in a non-rent-seeking manner without taking a transaction fee. At the same time, the participants of the Winding Tree platform are able to govern the platform collaboratively. The platform already boasts numerous airlines including Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and subsidiary Eurowings, Swiss Air, Swissport, Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines, and Air New Zealand.

Air Canada has signed a letter of intent to integrate Winding Tree’s travel distribution platform to improve the distribution and sale of air travel products and provide access to inventory directly from suppliers. Air Canada said that the blockchain platform will be beneficial to travel agents and will give them another avenue to access the airline’s inventory.

“As Canada’s largest airline, and a global leader in innovative airline distribution solutions, Air Canada recognizes the importance of leveraging this next generation technology,” said Keith Wallis, Director of Global Product Distribution for Air Canada. “We plan to integrate Air Canada’s Direct Connect API with Winding Tree’s public blockchain platform, giving blockchain-savvy users the ability to access our content directly from the source.”

Pedro Anderson, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Winding Tree, said that as the first North American carrier to work with Winding Tree’s public blockchain platform, Air Canada is showing itself to be a real leader in innovation.

“We are excited to have their valuable collaboration in creating the ideal developer experience and their ongoing feedback along the way as we build an open environment for travel distribution,” Anderson said.